


Mentor

by Miss M (missm)



Category: Maurice - E. M. Forster
Genre: Cambridge, Gen, M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-15
Updated: 2012-09-15
Packaged: 2017-11-14 08:02:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/513071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missm/pseuds/Miss%20M
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Risley is curious. Clive does not rise to the bait.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mentor

**Author's Note:**

> First posted to my LJ in September 2009.

Clive was invited to have tea with Risley one day: feeling benevolently inclined toward the man, he accepted. After all, it was in Risley's rooms he and Hall had met that first night of their friendship, and he was very aware of being thankful for having met Hall.  
  
Risley, never one for reserve, expressed his delight upon seeing him. As soon as tea had been poured, he leant across the table, fixing Clive with a conspiratorial stare, and muttered, " _Do_ tell me, Durham."  
  
"Tell you what?" Clive said, taking a sip of his tea, which he immediately deemed far too hot.  
  
"All of it, of course," Risley replied, in a manner rather too knowing for Clive's liking. "I'm _dying_ to know what is going on with you and Hall. Oh, yes -- " For Clive had choked on his tea. "Do not think I haven't noticed!"  
  
"I don't know what you are on about," Clive said stiffly. Salvation came in the shape of a napkin; he pressed it to his lips, avoiding Risley's eyes. "Hall is an excellent fellow; we've become great friends -- "    
  
"Yes, yes, yes," Risley said, waving his hand. "Everyone knows that by now. He's a dear, isn't he? I was rather charmed myself, to tell you the truth." Here he gave a tinkly little laugh, his eyes alert; Clive felt his face darken.  
  
Perceptive as he was, he did not rise to the bait. "I am sure you were," he remarked instead, adding another lump of sugar to his tea and stirring it. "But alas, Hall is a rather ordinary type of man... I can't really imagine the two of you having much in common."  
  
"Is that so?" said Risley, quite obviously pretending to be surprised. "That's funny; I should have thought the same of you two. Our friend doesn't seem much inclined toward Hellenism -- or am I mistaken, Durham?"  
  
Clive's heart gave a gleeful jolt at this, for he remembered the spare copy of the _Symposium_ which he'd brought with him from Penge, and which was currently lying in his rooms, waiting to be borrowed. It was fitting, he thought: he would be a mentor to Hall, teaching him what needed to be taught, as he himself had been taught by the Greeks. Beauty awaited; Aurora beckoned in the East. Above everything, there was love, pure and noble -- and really, how much did Risley understand of such things?  
  
"Not yet, perhaps," he said, putting his tea down and meeting Risley's smile with a smooth one of his own. "But I do believe he will learn."


End file.
